More Students Working Than Ever: Half of 15-24-Year-Olds Worked This Year

Fanni Kaszás 2018.10.11.

The number of students working both in public and private sectors has significantly increased this year. According to Magyar Idők and the Ministry of Finance, more students worked up until September than in all of 2017.

The Ministry added that this year, in addition to summer student work programs and workplaces at local governmental organizations, they also supported the employment of students in agriculture and hospitality in order to help tackle labor shortages in both sectors.

The grant was distributed in a monthly salary of 135,375 forints (EUR 416) for jobs requiring qualification, and 103,500 (EUR 318) forints for jobs that don’t; the state also paid the social contribution tax. The program, running from 18 June to 31 August, supported a total of 29,172 students with 3,4 billion forints (EUR 10,5 million).

According to DiákÉSZ – which brings together the 14 biggest student associations – student associations registered more students in the first eight months of 2018 than in the previous year. Students generated 60 percent more revenue in this period than they did the same time last year; 25 billion forints (EUR 77 million) compared to 15 billion forints (EUR 46 million) in 2017.

While in 2016 a total of 90,176 students worked at the DiákÉSZ associations, this number rose to 94,224 in 2017 and increased to 87,564 in the first eight months of 2018. DiákÉSZ predicts 95-100 thousand students will register by the end of this year.

Looking at the fact that DiákÉSZ represents roughly half of the student associations in Hungary, the number of students employed is expected to be around 180,000 in 2018, which means half of 15-24-year-olds.